I started this blog back in 2016–a little more than four years before today. In these last four years this has been a sounding board for the thoughts, characters, and ideas in my mind. It has functioned as my memory device; achieving the mission I set out for this little experiment. However, I’ve decided to move my thoughts to a new home and also started a newsletter. See you guys there!
[ twenty three ]
With another trip around the sun under my belt, I am once again a year wiser. My 23rd year didn’t pan out the way I imagined it would. Instead, like any good adventure, it was full of plot twists and contradictions; but it is within these subversion of expectations that this year left me feeling more grateful, more compassionate, and more optimistic for the future.
In the midst of a global pandemic, I attended my first protest. Within the lonely confines of quarantine, I found acceptance, connection, and love. And armed with only a mini-fridge and portable induction stovetop, I finally learned how to cook a decent Taiwanese meal.
Without a doubt, this year was a revelation. Here’s to twenty-four.
[ the catalytic nature of covid-19 ]
An article that caught my attention recently which spurred many late-night, ramen-fueled link hopping binges is titled The World After Coronavirus written by author of the acclaimed book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari. Unlike the flood of articles that enumerate the impact COVID-19 is having second-to-second in our daily lives, Yuval focuses on the world we will inhabit coming out of this pandemic. He paints COVID-19 as a catalyst which fast-forwards the usually lethargic march of history.
Decisions that in normal times could take years of deliberation are passed in a matter of hours. Immature and even dangerous technologies are pressed into service, because the risks of doing nothing are bigger. Entire countries serve as guinea-pigs in large-scale social experiments. What happens when everybody works from home and communicates only at a distance? What happens when entire schools and universities go online?
The truth is many of these “emergency measures” will be here to stay even after the crisis is alleviated because there will always be the next crisis to prevent. Of course none of these measures are inherently harmful or negative, but the expedited process of implementing them in emergency can lead to unintended, long-term consequences if we aren’t careful.
In the article he chooses to focus on this epidemic as an “important watershed in the history of surveillance”. It could normalize the use of mass surveillance tools in countries that have refrained from them so far, and will be one of the first times “under the skin” (i.e., body temperature) surveillance is deployed on a mass scale. This could be the turning point for governments choosing between policing an ignorant population or promoting a self-motivated and well-informed one.
AI Solutionism and Algorithmic Determinism
This got me thinking about what milestone decisions have been accelerated in the tech industry due to COVID-19 whose repercussions will reverberate long beyond this crisis. The main one I’ve observed is the decision to rely exclusively on machine learning (ML) and AI to power many of the human processes that were previously only ML-aided or entirely completed by humans. This cursory decision to automate entire processes necessitated by the lack of resources caused by COVID-19 can set a dangerous precedence for reliance on these nascent ML models long after the virus is eradicated.
AI Solutionism, the philosophical idea of using AI to solve every problem imaginable and de facto religion of the Silicon Valley, has been one of the polarizing topics within the tech community for some time. This debate has been raging on for years now with even pop culture icons weighing in, most recently in Childish Gambino’s new album (highly recommended) on the track Algorhythm which states, “Life, is it really worth it? The algorithm is perfect.”
The debate has always been between the “utopian belief that our algorithmic saviour has arrived” and the “dystopian notion that AI will destroy humanity”. But the question is not “can AI solve our problems,” but “should we use AI to solve our problems,” because not everything which can be automated should be.
Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.
In this article aptly titled AI Solutionism, Dr. Polonski describes the perils of using machine learning, at least in its current fledgling form, to solve every problem. He gives the anecdote of the disastrous recommendation to utilize AI in the court rooms of America to calculate criminal risk scores that help judges make more “data-driven decisions”. At first glance, this sounds harmless and even beneficial, but the AI-generated risk score was found to amplify structural racial discrimination.
Simply adding a neural network to a democracy does not mean it will be instantly more inclusive, fair or personalized.
All these machine learning models and, so called, artificial intelligences may not be as “intelligent” as you think. They aren’t magic, and no matter how capable they are at approximating latent patterns or structures in nature, they are only as good as the data.
And the truth is: human biases bleed into our algorithms.
I’m not saying the particular programmer which created the model is biased, but rather the underlying data it is trained on is biased. The world isn’t a fair, egalitarian utopia no matter how much we fight for it to be. So when we train AI to calculate criminal risk scores against the historical backdrop of systemic, institutionalized racism in our country, how can we expect it to be anything but racist?
The more we treat these machine learning models as black boxes, the more dangerous it is. Dr. Polonski details in another article, titled Algorithmic determinism and the limits of artificial intelligence, how these algorithmic biases can only amplify our existing biases and deepen social divisions. Many of us are totally unaware that we are already delegating countless daily decisions to artificial intelligence. Where to eat. What songs to listen to. What articles to read. Which items to shop for. All these AI driven decisions hidden under the veneer of convenience and utility.
These machine learning models can only use data from previous actions to predict our needs in the future. And this is quite problematic, because as Polonski says, “[machine learning] tends to reproduce established patterns of behavior, providing old answers to new questions . . . precluding our need for experimentation and exploration, while ignoring the multiplicity of our identity.” And thus societal progression becomes an ouroboros, a snake content with swallowing its own tail, refusing to shed its skin.
Pressure is to evolve, take a bite of the apple (Ooh)
Donald Glover
We crush it into the sauce, how do we know the cost?
How do we know the truth without feeling what could be false? (Ooh)
Freedom of being wrong, freedom of being lost
Ethical AI
Now that the transition to algorithmic decision making has been expedited by COVID-19, it is more important than ever coming out of this emergency to invest resources into ethical AI. There are already people working on important problems like setting up processes to audit algorithms for bias and defining fairness. However, part of the responsibility falls into our hands in terms of education, awareness, and pushing for changes in policy that enforce accountability around machine learning applications.
The battle for ethical AI has even been brought to the world’s largest machine-learning conference, with groups pushing for “machine-learning papers to include a section on societal harms, as well as the provenance of their data sets”. Large tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft also have a large role to play in this, and it should be a requirement for them to set up diverse ethics boards with actual decision-making power.
These are the type of processes we need solidly in place before our everyday lives become increasingly dominated by algorithmic decision making. “We shape our algorithms; thereafter, they shape us.” So let’s make sure these algorithms paint a prettier picture than the one we live in now.
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[ space dust ]
We didn’t need a story, we didn’t need a real world
Anthony Gonzalez
We just had to keep walking
And we became the stories, we became the places
We were the lights, the deserts, the faraway worlds
We were you before you even existed
There she was — 13,796 feet above sea level, holding a steady 45. The 2006 Honda CRV she picked up from Keahole was no beauty, but it got her from the sea to the sky. Tree-like silhouettes darted past her windows as she craned her neck towards the night sky, spellbound. Occasionally flitting her eyes towards the road to ensure she didn’t cut short the life-span of some stray chicken, Lucy was absolutely fixated by the translucent, speckled dome that engulfed her vehicle. Two lefts and a right turn later, her phone finally chimed in, “Your destination will be on your right in 250 feet.” The compact sports-SUV swung to a grating halt as Lucy slammed on the foot brake and pulled the handbrake in one fell motion.
She was finally here, Mauna Kea Observatory, atop the largest dormant volcano in Hawaii. When measured from its underwater base, Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in the world, boasting a dizzying height of 33,500 feet. Lucy closed her eyes and sat in the enclosed space of the Honda for a long second, taking a deep breath. She felt lightheaded as if she had just ran a 10k. The more likely culprit was the elevation. This was one of the few places in the world where you could drive from sea level to 14,000 feet in just under 2 hours, with 40% less oxygen at the peak, where Lucy currently resided. She needed a few more moments to collect herself before leaving the confined shelter of the vehicle to confront the vast unknown that awaited her outside.
The HP OfficeJet 3830 brings the power of the printer to the palm of your hand. The HP Smart app allows you to easily set up your printer, scan from your smartphone, order toner, and print from the cloud. Designed to fit your office. No. Designed to fit your life. That sounds too pretentious. Designed to fit your office. Okay, what printer isn’t designed to fit in an office? Designed to fit your life. Final decision.
Lucy grunted and closed out her Google Docs tab while stabbing another piece of chicken in her salad as if it was the source of her frustration. Here she was sitting in her eight-by-twelve cubicle, working her nine-to-five job, eating her papery Sweetgreen salad as if spending those 30 minutes at her desk for lunch would be the productivity difference that would get her the big break she’d been hoping for. This was a scene that she never thought she would star in if you asked her three years ago, newly graduated with a double in Communications and English. Back then Lucy was sure that she had a one way ticket to one of the big five publishing firms, and maybe even fitting a published novella under her name by the age of twenty-five.
Well, here she was. Twenty-five. Back in her home town of Temple City, California writing copy for some of the most riveting and innovative technological products in the world: printers. It was a sick joke. Lucy often feels like she is starring in the world’s most mundane stage show, but without knowing anyone’s lines or stage cues and only barely deciphering the audience’s reactions. Under the harsh spotlight was a shoddy impression of herself, reciting some cobbled together script pandering to the audience, and the show is already halfway through.
“Okay, I’ve officially hit a new low with these depressing thoughts,” she mumbled to herself.
The familiar ring of a bell cut through her thoughts as a notification slid into view from the right side of her computer screen. It read, “Matt’s Cheap Flights: Round-trip Hawaii Today Less Than $400,” followed by a plane, sun, and beach emoji for individuals that have now evolved past the ability to read plain English. She juggled the thought in her head for a second, daydreaming of soft white-sand beaches with a margarita in her hand, before snapping out of it.
What is this? Eat, pray, love? How much more predictable could you get Lucy. Having some quarter-life crisis and dealing with it by traveling and some ‘finding yourself’ bullshit.
She rolled her eyes and swiped the notification away. This wasn’t the first time she bought into the black hole of “optimization” and “self-care” prescriptions. It wasn’t all bad, but the cynic in her couldn’t help but feel like a cog in the seemingly unstoppable consumerist engine that ate up her problems and spit out remedies packaged in cute, convenient, bite-sized boxes. Lululemon yoga pants. Group cycling classes. Self-help books. And the list goes on.
Lost in thought, her gaze landed on the polished picture frame displayed proudly on her desk. Lucy and her father, grins as bright as a summer day. The world was a better place when he smiled. He always knew the right words to say in moments like this.
I wish you were here, Papa.
He’d probably command her to get up out of that sad, mushy office chair and get on the first flight to Hawaii. She recalled that he always talked about this one place on Big Island. What was it again? He said you could see the entire Milky Way from there; that the view of the night sky was littered with…space dust. What a view that must be.
Lucy opened up another Chrome tab. Three Google searches, two online forms, and one email later, she was ready to make her way to Mauna Kea observatory.
Lucy’s breath finally settled back into a stable rhythm. Deep breath in. Hold. Exhale. She extinguished the engine and the last beams of artificial light faded away. With little to no light pollution 14,000 feet up on a remote island, Lucy knew that the view awaiting her outside would rob her of her breath again. For dramatic effect, she closed her eyes, found the handle of the driver-side door and stepped out. Tilting her head towards the heavens, she slowly opened her eyes.
Space dust.
Lucy felt like she was at the center of the universe’s largest snow globe, where the incandescent celestial bodies light-years away were reduced to snowflakes shimmering gently, suspended in time. She imagined them as insignificant dust particles floating through the infinitely expanding backdrop of the cosmos. At the scale of the observable universe, every piece of matter regardless of magnitude must simply be…dust.
Lucy wrinkled her nose and the musty smell of mildew suddenly invaded her olfactory senses. She was three years old again, clumsily climbing up the crooked stairs leading to the attic of her childhood home. Her father’s footsteps followed gently behind. At first glance, the attic was a decidedly uninteresting place to three year-old Lucy. Pitch black, she could barely make out the indistinct outlines of cardboard box towers stacking up to the beams which met in a series of arches.
“No fun, can’t see,” grumbled Lucy.
“What do you mean, honey? This is a graveyard for treasures,” whispered her father playfully. “Didn’t you know?”
He gave Lucy a sly smile before disappearing into the far corner of the attic. She was sure the room had eaten him up whole.
“Papa?” muttered Lucy shakily. “Pa!”
Silence.
Suddenly a rumbling voice rang out, “Let there be light!” And in that single moment the room was set ablaze. Streaks of sunlight cut through the attic like bullets and the shadows ran like thieves scurrying away in terror. And then there was the dust. Plumes of dust blooming from every corner of the room, shimmering and colliding and dispersing. The light jumped and scattered through the swirling particles as if joining them in their emphatic dance.
That day Lucy remembered staying in the attic for two whole hours. Unmoving. Not until every last visible dust particle danced its last dance and settled again on the cold wood paneling. Even now, Lucy isn’t sure what exactly about that scene captivated her so thoroughly. The chaotic movements of each particle. The way they clashed, swirled, separated so unpredictably only to finally come to rest again. It was nothing short of sublime.
“We’re really just space dust aren’t we?” Lucy chuckled, speaking to the stars, as if to an old friend.
She found that thought unexpectedly comforting. She didn’t remember the last time she just let herself — be. To simply exist. She’d always been living life at 200 miles per hour. Because there was always a next stop. The next milestone. She forgot that she was just space dust. Dancing her dance. Colliding and swaying with other particles along the way. And one day she would also settle on the unmoving floor of the universe with every other piece of matter.
Looking up at her fellow, sparkling comrades trillions of miles away, she grinned. It was moments of connection like this that she remembers so vividly from the short 25 years of her life. Biking down Venice Beach with Papa after spending the perfect Sunday eating fruit pops and building sand castles. Gasping for breath with friends after everyone exhausted the last minute fighting for oxygen giggling about some mindless joke. Moments that made her think, “If I couldn’t do this forever, I’d die.”
It was simply the collision of particles. Scattering and refracting the light around them as if like magic.
And she knew that sight must’ve been nothing short of sublime.
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[ twenty two ]
It’s been about a year into full-time “adult” life and it feels surreal in a way. I moved to a new city. Established a new community. Started a new job. Slowly but surely I can feel myself growing into the pair of shoes that I wore walking down the commencement lawn in Santa Barbara and onto my one-way flight to Seattle. A new city came with its own set of challenges, complete with homesick nights and days waking up without even motivation to get out of bed. Most days it felt like I was simply imitating what I’ve been told was a responsible, put-together college graduate. Passionate about their new job. Confident and sociable. Excels in the workplace but still finds time for new friends and pursuing personal hobbies. Stays on top of his personal health. Remembers to call home to tell his parents that he loves them. Never fails to keep in touch with all his friends and family back home.
What seemed like a role I wasn’t meant to play is now starting to feel attainable. No longer imitating but truly settling into who I want to become. Twenty-two has been one of the most rewarding years of my life. Here’s to twenty-three.
[ georgia pt. 3 ]
Lately Georgia found herself in a particular mood. A lingering melancholy that was hard to describe. Not an all consuming feeling, but at the same time relentlessly constant. Like a leaking faucet in the kitchen. Drip. Drip. Drip. It demanded her attention. It was annoying enough to convince her to stay in bed an extra half hour in the mornings, or leave her lying awake at night ruminating over the source of the aching.
It felt like an emptiness of sorts, a cavity in the pit of her stomach. It had an appetite of a malnourished street dog. A liu lang gou her mom would call it. An insatiable pet that Georgia never asked for; with a ravenous hunger for something that she could not provide. Georgia participated in activities to divert it’s attention, desperately throwing bones for it to gnaw on but it always came back with twice the enthusiasm.
These activities included writing poetry. Creating playlists of her favorite songs. Reading books. Watching YouTube videos. Classic techniques she’s used before to keep unwanted thoughts at bay. But what didn’t she want to confront? She could not pinpoint the source of the melancholy. Maybe it was the weather. Something tangible; with an easy explanation. She convinced herself, “It must be the weather.” That would be the easiest answer. Something outside of her control that she could nevertheless assign the blame.
But deep down Georgia knew where the melancholy grew from. It grew from heartbreak. At first she welcomed it, filling in the cracks that were left behind. It thrived in the seedy, dark recesses of these fractures; the perfect breeding ground where it could flourish. Soon it outgrew this home and bloomed like cherry blossoms in the spring, demanding Georgia’s attention. Drip. Drip. Drip.
But Georgia understood that cherry blossoms were short lived. As blinding as the beauty of the cherry blossom was in full bloom, it would eventually fade. But even so, she couldn’t help but think, “I hope I find it some day.”
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[ why i’m leaving buzzfeed ]
18 Things I Learned in 2018
- i never worked at buzzfeed
- how to make thai food
- thai sausage > chinese sausage
- overnight oats are perfect for a quick/nutritious breakfast
- i feel best when i have a good routine going
- it’s ok not to be productive 100% of the time
- you don’t have to say ‘yes’ to everything
- i hate tequila, thanks cabo
- don’t worry about money when traveling, just enjoy
- how to be a new yorker
- traveling can be pretty tiring
- travel while you can
- bay area public transportation is still the shittiest
- i like challenge over repetition in the workplace
- the korean skin care routine has way too many steps, you need max 3
- producing music is difficult but rewarding
- nintendo’s still got it
- relax
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[ georgia pt. 2 ]
Brainstorming.
Again Georgia found herself in the environment that made her the most comfortable, tucked away in the corner of a room letting her thoughts race each other at the speed of light, uninterrupted and uninhibited. Today this environment manifested itself as her favorite Brooklyn coffee shop, always enough chatter in the room for companionship but never rowdy enough to warrant earbuds. She was brainstorming ideas for her hit book series–at least hopefully a hit. It’s been a year since she’s moved to New York City ripe and ready for new experiences, fascinating characters, and the jumpstart to her career.
She found the first two in abundance but the latter wasn’t as easily achieved. In the past year, the city didn’t provide her much more than one-off contract journaling jobs while she desperately tried to scrounge together time to work on her debut novel. A book contract doesn’t really put bread on the table yet if the book is still a half-baked pie of hogwash. So here she was, spending her weekend sifting through piles of half-finished Word documents and scratched out title cards. But out of everything she felt in that tiny coffee shop: stress, frustration, inspiration, an empty stomach; the heaviest emotion at the bottom of her gut was in fact satisfaction. She was content.
She had survived a year in the city, a feat none of her friends or family thought was in her. And to be perfectly honest, she didn’t either. The city had been surprisingly gentle with her, slowly revealing it’s nooks and crannies, secrets, and amusements with a nurturing hand. It was like unfolding one of those insanely intricate origami pieces, gradually learning how each crease and fold came together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.
This feeling took Georgia by surprise, similar to the first sip of her favorite chamomile tea after trudging through the winter snow, except she knew that it was here to stay. It was less fleeting, more like she had finally found the missing jigsaw piece under the couch to the Cafe Terrace at Night puzzle set she’d been trying to finish since childhood. It was a satisfaction that took hard work and intention.
And it was right then, cramped in the corner of a tiny Brooklyn coffee shop surrounded by strangers; she felt like a true New Yorker for the first time.
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[ graduation ]
Time seems to move so slowly second to second, hour to hour, day to day, and then all at once when you least expect it. My time at UC Santa Barbara seemed like it would never conclude but I suddenly find myself placed at the tail end of the story, frantically attempting to tie up loose ends and scribbling down last minute memories.
The story of the past four years turned out to be the rollercoaster ride that I had least expected, full of the winding twist and turns of any college experience. As with any rollercoaster, you can’t really process the events until the tail end, when all the carts start lining up at the exit. I guess now my cart is lining up at the exit. And as I get ready to be rushed out by the park workers, my mind is finally piecing together the stories that were told here. Not all of them have meaningful lessons at the end. Some are sad, and some are incredibly happy. Some are blurry and willingly half-remembered while others are as sharp as 4K. But none were inconsequential.
There are too many characters in this anthology to thank one by one but just know that each holds a special space in my heart. And thank you Mom and Dad for funding this one hell of a rollercoaster ride. ❤
P.S. Thank you Youssef Sibih for these amazing photos.
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Cathode Rey Tube 